Can you believe your eyes? (7 talks)

Beau Lotto's color games puzzle your vision, but they also spotlight what you can't normally see: how your brain works. This fun, first-hand look at your own versatile sense of sight reveals how evolution tints your perception of what's really out there.

TEDGlobal 2009, Filmed Jul 2009, Posted Oct 2009

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First, Keith Barry shows us how our brains can fool our bodies -- in a trick that works via podcast too. Then he involves the audience in some jaw-dropping (and even a bit dangerous) feats of brain magic.

TED2004, Filmed Feb 2004, Posted Jul 2008

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In a lively show, mathemagician Arthur Benjamin races a team of calculators to figure out 3-digit squares, solves another massive mental equation and guesses a few birthdays. How does he do it? He’ll tell you.

TED2005, Filmed Feb 2005, Posted Dec 2007

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In this highly personal talk from TEDMED, magician and stuntman David Blaine describes what it took to hold his breath underwater for 17 minutes -- a world record (only two minutes shorter than this entire talk!) -- and what his often death-defying work means to him. Warning: do NOT try this at home.

TEDMED 2009, Filmed Oct 2009, Posted Jan 2010

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Al Seckel, a cognitive neuroscientist, explores the perceptual illusions that fool our brains. Loads of eye tricks help him prove that not only are we easily fooled, we kind of like it.

TED2004, Filmed Feb 2004, Posted Apr 2007

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Using three iPods like magical props, Marco Tempest spins a clever, surprisingly heartfelt meditation on truth and lies, art and emotion.

TEDGlobal 2011, Filmed Jul 2011, Posted Aug 2011

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Like your uncle at a family party, the rumpled Swedish doctor Lennart Green says, "Pick a card, any card." But what he does with those cards is pure magic -- flabbergasting, lightning-fast, how-does-he-do-it? magic.

TED2005, Filmed Feb 2005, Posted Aug 2008

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